Australian Economic Review最新文献

{"title":"Decline to Boom to Slowdown: Australia's Labour Market in the COVID-19 Era","authors":"Jeff Borland","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70047","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article presents a 5-year review of Australia's labour market from early 2020 through to the end of 2024, what I term the ‘COVID-19 era’. A first objective is to provide a history of the main developments in the labour market during this period. The evolution of employment outcomes is charted, together with analysis of how adjustment happened, which jobs and workers were most affected, and the role of government policy. Topics relating to wage growth, labour supply and labour productivity are also covered in detail. A second objective is to demonstrate that understanding the COVID-19 era enables important lessons to be drawn about the operation of Australia's labour market and about policy—relevant both for today and for similar future episodes.</p>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"59 1","pages":"20-58"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8462.70047","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147564928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Case for Reorienting Active Labour Market Policies Towards the Demand-Side","authors":"Jo Ingold,&nbsp;Jakhongir Kakhkharov,&nbsp;Qian Yi Lee","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70035","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Since the 1990s, Australia, like other OECD countries, has deployed active labour market policies (ALMPs) to assist unemployed individuals into employment. Extant scholarship in economics and other disciplines demonstrates the limitations of ALMPs, particularly for individuals who are long-term unemployed and with multiple, complex barriers to employment. Critiques hinge on the limitations of the predominant supply-side approach focused on case management and preparing individuals for employment without accounting for the behaviours and practices of the demand-side (employers). This article argues that a reorienting of ALMPs towards the demand side is urgently required and proposes a blueprint to take this forward.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 4","pages":"326-331"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145659727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trade Wars and Immigration Restrictions: Insights From the Interwar Era","authors":"Dean Hoi,&nbsp;Ruikun Ma,&nbsp;Laura Panza","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Background</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The interwar period saw a reversal of the first wave of globalization, with rising trade and migration barriers. Understanding this shift helps contextualize today's backlash against global integration.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We document trade and migration trends, analyse policies that dismantled globalization, and review literature on their effects on workers, industries, and economies. Historical and comparative analysis links past protectionist cycles with current trends.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Protectionist policies during the interwar period disrupted trade and migration, leaving lasting economic and labour market impacts. Historical patterns parallel contemporary moves toward reduced openness.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusion</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study highlights the risks of protectionist cycles and provides historical context for current challenges to global integration, informing policy responses to sustain international economic cooperation.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 4","pages":"343-352"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145659575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introductory Remarks","authors":"Barbara Broadway","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70038","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145659573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Employment Services for Jobseekers Needing Substantial Assistance: How We Got to Where We Are and How to Make Progress","authors":"Jeff Borland","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70036","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article (i) provides a brief history of how the employment services system in Australia has come to fail jobseekers with high barriers to employment; (ii) presents an overview of the elements of a successful programme for those jobseekers; and (iii) makes recommendations on how to make progress on improving the system for delivery of employment services, building from the Hill report'.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 4","pages":"332-342"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145659712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Progressive Productivity Agenda","authors":"Andrew Leigh","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70034","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Australia's long-term economic prosperity is fundamentally tied to productivity growth, yet recent decades have seen a pronounced slowdown with significant implications for living standards and intergenerational mobility. This article examines a policy framework that integrates economic efficiency with social equity. It identifies three critical domains for policy intervention: investment in individuals, through enhanced skills, health, and labour market inclusivity; investment in infrastructure, encompassing both physical systems such as housing and digital platforms essential for technological adoption; and investment in institutions, including robust competition policy, regulatory reform, and evidence-based public administration. Drawing on recent empirical evidence and policy developments, the article proposes that sustained, inclusive productivity growth is not merely an economic objective but a social necessity, one that underpins rising real incomes, reduces inequality and ensures long-run fiscal sustainability.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 4","pages":"317-324"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145659702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction to the Policy Forum on the NAIRU","authors":"Sarantis Tsiaplias","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70032","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This policy forum examines the Australian NAIRU, a key measure in describing the relationship between labour market slack and inflation, through four complementary lenses. First, Borland and Harris evaluate the RBA's dashboard-style, narrative approach to gauging labour-market slack. Second, Ballantyne and Cusbert estimate a state-space model that points to a current NAIRU near 5% and weaker feedback from past inflation. Third, Gross tests alternative state-space specifications, clustering the NAIRU in the 4%–5% range and supporting a 4.5% benchmark. Finally, Dawkins and Garnaut propose a pragmatic test: tighten conditions until wage pressure lifts inflation. Together, the papers compare methods, weigh the evidence, and set out the policy trade-offs in today's NAIRU debate.</p>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 3","pages":"222-223"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8462.70032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145181541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reducing the NAIRU and Achieving Full Employment","authors":"Ross Garnaut,&nbsp;Peter Dawkins","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70033","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Genuine full employment is a pivotal economic objective around which others move. It has important implications for distributional equity and raises productivity. Keeping the economy at the highest rate of labour utilisation possible, without domestic inflationary pressures pushing inflation consistently above the target range, will tend to reduce the non-accelerating rate of unemployment (NAIRU) over time, raise labour force participation and raise national incomes and output. It also reduces the budget deficit by reducing government spending and raising government revenue.&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is wise to implement policies to reduce the NAIRU to the lowest level consistent with avoiding inflation accelerating above the target range and staying there, and to operate the economy with unemployment at the NAIRU. Various microeconomic policies can lower the NAIRU by improving the matching of labour demand and labour supply, and enhancing the performance of the education and training system. Macroeconomic policy can reduce the NAIRU by steadily increasing aggregate demand through moderate monetary and fiscal policy when inflation and inflation expectations are in the target range of 2–3 per cent (or approaching that range from above) and reducing unemployment until wage pressures in the labour market are starting to cause an acceleration of inflation persistently to above the target range. This was implicitly the approach to macroeconomic policy for a short period in the early 2020s when unemployment was reduced to 3.4 per cent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We recommend adopting that approach now, alongside policies to improve the efficiency of the labour market. That is the best way to reduce the NAIRU and to find out what it is. The alternative approach, relying on econometric estimates using historical data, can only provide ballpark estimates of where the NAIRU has been in the past and may differ significantly from the lowest levels consistent with avoiding acceleration of inflation in current circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The NAIRU concept was introduced in the mid-1970s by Modigliani and Papademos (&lt;span&gt;1975&lt;/span&gt;) as an alternative to the older concept of the ‘natural rate of unemployment’. It was defined as the level of unemployment below which price expectations would fuel wage rises that led to accelerating inflation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Australian econometric estimates of the NAIRU in the 1980s and 1990s had increased in the 1970s and were of the order of 5–7 per cent (Gruen et al. &lt;span&gt;1999&lt;/span&gt;). It was understood that inflation expectations had increased and been built into wage setting. Labour market institutions at that time encouraged wage-price spirals. The Accord, followed by a period of labour market reforms and reductions in union power changed the wage-setting environment. This and sustained low inflation after the deep recession of 1990–91 produced lower econometric estimates, which have been in the range of 4–5 per cent in recent times (Australian Treasury &lt;span&gt;2","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 3","pages":"246-250"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8462.70033","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145181540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The NAIRU in Australia","authors":"Isaac Gross","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70031","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the concept of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) and its application in Australia. We review its theoretical origins, international and domestic development, and the Reserve Bank of Australia's model-based estimation approach. Using three different NAIRU models, we evaluate whether recent labour market outcomes support a lower NAIRU than the Bank's published 4.5 per cent benchmark. The findings suggest that while some indicators point to a modest decline, the central estimate remains near the RBA's official figure.</p>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 3","pages":"242-245"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8462.70031","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145181520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The NAIRU Under Anchored Inflation Expectations","authors":"Alexander Ballantyne,&nbsp;Tom Cusbert","doi":"10.1111/1467-8462.70027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70027","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The introduction of inflation targeting has seen long-term inflation expectations become much more anchored than when models of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) were conceived. This changes how we should interpret the NAIRU and inflation dynamics over the short-to-medium term. We update the model in Cusbert (2017) to allow for structural breaks upon the introduction of inflation targeting in Australia, finding long-term expectations have become relatively more important for inflation dynamics, and inflation has become less volatile. We use the model to conduct scenarios that highlight the importance of expectations formation for short-to-medium run inflation dynamics. The scenarios illustrate how anchored inflation expectations improve the short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment and change inference about the NAIRU – observing falling inflation or wage growth cannot be used to infer that unemployment is above the NAIRU.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46348,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Review","volume":"58 3","pages":"224-235"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145181518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}